MSI X570 bios flash question

[Bruadarach-Creative]

Just finished installing my new Ryzen 7-5800x into my MSI x570 MAG Tomahawk board and its water block today when I started reading on the required BIOS update. 
My question is whether I am able to complete the BIOS flash without removing the CPU and water block?

[Bombastinator]

This one reminds me a bit of that doctor joke about playing the piano.  If the stuff is installed correctly it is not required to do anything but run the software assuming it works.  Many boards will run a 5000 series gpu sorta but still prefer a bios update to run well.  I don’t know if you’re int that category or not.  If you for example have a problem with that other stuff then a problem could occur depending on how you do the flash. Bios flash from USB might even be available on that board so a cpu might not even need to be installed to make it function.  Not all motherboards have a bios flashback feature though and for those a cpu is required to do a bios flash. The big advantage for bios flashback functionality is if the flash horks and corrupts you can still reflash and haven’t bricked the board. If you have bios flashback you shouldn’t need to remove the cpu to use it.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Bruadarach-Creative]

Thanks for this, I am ultimately determining whether the flash back from USB would cause an issue if I have installed the CPU that is supposedly incompatible without a BIOS update.